The thrifle o' liquor
Enliven'd her sinking heart's cockles, I think;
So the moral is plain,
That if love gives you pain,
There's nothing can cure it like taking to dhrink!
Uproarious were the "bravos" which followed the doctor's impromptu; the glasses overflowed, and were emptied to his health and song, as laughing faces nodded to him round the table. The doctor sat seriously rocking himself in his chair backwards and forwards, to meet the various duckings of the beaming faces about him; for every face beamed, but one—and that was the unfortunate M'Garry's. He was most deplorably drunk, and began to hold on by the table. At last he contrived to shove back his chair and get on his legs; and making a sloping stagger towards the wall, contrived by its support to scramble his way to the door. There he balanced himself as well as he could by the handle of the lock, which chance, rather than design, enabled him to turn, and the door suddenly opening, poor M'Garry made a rush across the landing-place, and, stumbling against an opposite door, would have fallen, had he not supported himself by the lock of that also, which, again yielding to his heavy tugs, opened, and the miserable wretch making another plunge forward, his shins came in contact with the rail of a very low bed, and into it he fell head foremost, totally unable to rise, and, after some heavy grunts, he sank into a profound sleep.
In this state he was discovered soon after by Murphy, whose inventive faculty for frolic instantly suggested how the apothecary's mishap might be made the foundation of a good practical joke. Murtough went down-stairs, and procuring some blacking and red pickled cabbage by stealth, returned to the chamber where M'Garry now lay in a state of stupor, and dragging off his clothes, he made long dabs across his back with the purple juice of the pickle and Warren's paste, till poor M'Garry was as regularly striped as a tiger, from his shoulder to his flank. He then returned to the dinner-room, where the drinking bout had assumed a formidable character, and others, as well as the apothecary, began to feel the influence of their potations. Murphy confided to the doctor what he had done, and said that, when the men were drunk enough, he would contrive that M'Garry should be discovered, and then they would take their measures accordingly. It was not very long before his company were ripe enough for his designs, and then ringing the bell, he demanded of the waiter, when he entered, what had become of Mr. M'Garry. The waiter, not having any knowledge on the subject, was desired to inquire, and, a search being instituted, M'Garry was discovered by Mrs. Fay in the state Murphy had left him in. On seeing him, she was so terrified that she screamed, and ran into the dinner-room, wringing her hands, and shouting "Murder." A great commotion ensued, and a general rush to the bedroom took place, and exclamations of wonder and horror flew round the room, not only from the gentlemen of the dinner-party, but from the servants of the house, who crowded to the chamber on the first alarm, and helped not a little to increase the confusion.
"Oh! who ever see the like of it!" shouted Mrs. Fay. "He's kilt with the batin' he got! Oh, look at him—black and blue all over! Oh, the murther it is! Oh, I wouldn't be Squire O'Grady for all his fort'n."
"Gad, I believe he's killed sure enough," said Murphy.
"What a splendid action the widow will have!" said Jack Horan.